Psychological coping skills for all

Psychological tools for wellness will cover coping skills and techniques that can be used by you in your everyday life to reduce stress, cope better with the challenges that life throws at you and resolve potential issues before they grow into problems. It will also allow you to take a look at your life and plot a path forward in an organised yet flexible way that allows you to discover who you are and act towards goals that are congruent with this.

Basically, a fundamental goal of tools for health and wellness is to allow you to self-actualise, be all that you can be!

Coping skills for those who are struggling

Psychological tools for wellness will also provide guidance of those of you who are struggling with particular psychological or physical illnesses. It will provide psychological skills to allow you to better manage chronic illness conditions from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue through to cancer, diabetes 2 and cardiovascular disease. Since much of what you will learn from psychological tools for wellness will stem from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), let’s take a closer look at what this highly effective psychotherapy entails and how it differs from CBT techniques.

Cognitive behavioural therapy versus cognitive behavioural techniques

I am and will always be a cognitive behavioural therapist. Now this must not be confused with therapists who use cognitive-behavioural tools. Many utilise certain CBT techniques with clients, or even role them out generally to their clientele. This is in no which way cognitive behavioural therapy. CBT is a process that begins with an assessment and initial formulation of the problem. It will include an understanding of predisposing factors (genetic and environmental), precipitating factors, and maintaining factors (together with protective ones). It involves building a working model of the problem together with the client by using information on the client, theoretical models of different psychopathology and the therapists own knowledge and skill. Quantifiable goals are set and a relatively structured (but not at all rigid) process is followed to achieve these goals.

Techniques are utilised within this context, rather than thrown around hodge-podge. This is why you pay all that money to see a cognitive behavioural therapist – the skill level is high and the treatment has high (and empirically validated ) success rates!

I mention all of this because this website is obviously not CBT. However, as we consider various possible techniques I will always attempt to explain when and where particular cognitive tools / coping strategies are most appropriate. The focus will also be on normal everyday situations and the concept of wellness, as much as on actual psychiatric conditions.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) basics

If we try to very simply map out the cognitive therapy realm we could reduce any system (including a person) to interactions between the following four areas:

Cognitions (thoughts and beliefs),

Behaviours (actions),

Emotions (feelings), and

Physiology / neurochemistry

You will see that certain other areas of this website deal with techniques that are detailed enough to be given their own sections. These include exercise workout’s, articles on how to relieve stress, attaining a healthy diet plan and a guide to obtaining supplements that have actual evidence to their efficacy and safety.

Together with those broad sections we will attempt with psychological tools for wellness to illuminate coping skills to cover all four areas of the CBT model (cognitions, behaviours, emotions and physiology).

Psychological tools for wellness

Psychological tools for wellness will cover coping skills such as the following:

Breathing

Relaxation techniques

Mindfulness

Maximising happiness

Ways to build self-esteem

Rationally responding to thoughts

Ways to stop ruminating

Conflict management and assertiveness

Dealing with cravings

Relapse prevention techniques

Understanding identity

Engaging with interests and hobbies

Desensitization techniques

Behavioural reality testing

Organization and structure

Life diaries

Goals and planning

Being proactive

Budgets

Utilizing technology for wellness

Ways to open up

Breaking old patterns of behaviour

And much, much more…!

Psychological tools for wellness mission statement

Psychological tools for wellness has the rather lofty aspiration of managing to touch each and every person who graces this site, whether it makes one small issue just a smidge easier for you to solve or radically changes the quality and direction of your life.